That's what Charlene Hastings said she was told when she called to inquire
about breast enlargement surgery at Seton Medical Center, a Catholic
hospital in Daly City.

Now the San Franciscan is suing the hospital, claiming officials there
discriminated against her because she had a sex-change operation.

Hastings, 57,
had already had the major surgery she needed to become a woman. She had
chosen a San Francisco plastic surgeon with privileges at Seton to perform
the breast augmentation in October 2006. But the surgeon, Dr. Leonard Gray,
told her that Seton no longer allowed him to operate on transgender
patients, Hastings said.

When Hastings called Seton to learn more, a surgical coordinator said the
hospital would not allow its facilities to be used for transgender surgery,
according to the lawsuit, "She was saying, 'It's not God's will,' " Hastings
said. "I couldn't believe it. It's a blatant case of discrimination."

The lawsuit, filed Dec. 21 in San Francisco Superior Court, pits the rights
of transgendered people against the hospital's rights to operate according
to its religious principles.

State law allows religiously affiliated hospitals to refuse to provide
abortions, but there is no specific religious exemption allowing hospitals
to deny elective surgery to transgender people.

"This certainly isn't an
isolated incident," said Kristina Wertz, legal director of the Transgender
Law Center in San Francisco. "Seton and other hospitals in the area have put
up significant barriers to care" for transgender people, she said.

Seton is a member of the Daughters of Charity Health System, which operates
five Catholic hospitals in California including O'Connor Hospital in San
Jose.

The surgical coordinator was following hospital policy in refusing Hastings'
surgery, said Elizabeth Nikels, vice president of communications for
Daughters of Charity.

"Seton Medical Center provides medically necessary services to all
individuals," Nikels said in a prepared statement. "However, the hospital
does not perform surgical procedures contrary to Catholic teaching; for
example, abortion, direct euthanasia, transgender surgery or any of its
related components." The hospital did not comment directly on the lawsuit.

Gray still performs breast enlargement surgeries at Seton on women who are
not transgender.

When it was owned by Catholic Healthcare West, a large hospital
conglomerate, Seton apparently did allow transgender surgery. But when the
Daughters of Charity, which took ownership of the hospital in 2002, learned
in 2006 that such surgeries were still taking place, they were stopped, said
two sources who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized
to speak publicly for their organizations.

Wertz thinks Seton's policy violates the Unruh Act, a state law that
prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity or sexual
orientation.

"There's simply no religious exemption in the Unruh Act," Wertz said. "We're
talking about a type of care that's OK for one class but not another."

While her case winds through the courts, Hastings said she has put off
having the breast augmentation surgery, in part because her breasts are
continuing to grow through hormone therapy.

However, she is planning to have surgery to feminize her nose in February.
Hastings, who works for the city of San Francisco as a tax collector, said
she was raised Catholic. "I think God loves me no matter what," she said.

Christopher Dolan, the San Francisco attorney representing Hastings, said
Seton may argue that it's within its rights to deny elective procedures to
transgender people on religious grounds, but "that's not what this lawsuit
is about."

"This
is a civil rights story," he said. "It is about transgender people being
able to use businesses and other facilities on an equal basis as other
people. If you took out 'transgender' in the lawsuit and replaced it with
'African-American,' this would be a no-brainer."